The Lower House of the Tasmanian Parliament has passed government legislation which aims to dismantle the forest peace deal brokered under Labor.

The Government guillotined debate on the legislation and the vote came about 4:30pm, 13 for and nine against.

Labor and the Greens opposed the bill on the grounds it is poorly written and fails to repeal the Tasmanian Forests Agreement, negotiated by industry, union and green groups.

The government bill would re-classify 400,000 hectares of native forest so it could be reopened for large scale logging after 2020, at the Resources Minister's discretion.

Deputy Premier Jeremy Rockliff says it is about providing hope to rural and regional Tasmania.

Earlier, Greens MP Nick McKim described the cap on debate as an assault on democracy.

"This is an arrogant and draconian move by a panicked government to shut down debate because they know their bill represents one of the biggest attacks on the Tasmanian environment in our history," he said.

Greens colleague Cassy O'Connor accused the Government of being more concerned about the news cycle than proper scrutiny of its proposed legislation.

"What we've seen here happen today is the Government gag debate on a 128-page piece of legislation, cut off debate so that we have to have the vote at 4.20, so that you good people in the media have plenty of time to package up your stories for the six o'clock news tonight."

Labor Leader Bryan Green accused the Government of hiding from scrutiny.

"It denies us the opportunity to scrutinise this bill in a way that we thoroughly want to do, so that we can highlight the inadequacies of the bill in itself," he said.

"That's why we've run an argument...that the bill should be withdrawn and redrafted, because we think it's flawed in so many ways."

MLCs advised to take their time in considering the legislation

The bill now goes to the independent-dominated upper house.

The Resources Minister, Paul Harriss says MLCs should take as long as they need to consider it.

"The Upper House are very thorough, they get their minds around the issues," said the Minister.

"To their credit, their genuinely do that, and whatever time it takes will be fine.

"The former process, the earlier process by the Labor-Green government was to shut down the productive capacity in our forest."

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